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<br /> <br />000710 <br /> <br />Marylandv. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 745 note 21 ("United States' interests in the operation of the <br />OCS Act and the FERC's interests in the operation of the Natural Gas Act are sufficiently important <br />to warrant their intervention as party plaintiffs."). <br /> <br />The customary practice is for the Government to file an amicus curiae brief on its own motion or at <br />the invitation of the Court, i.e., it simply informs and advises the Court without getting into the fray <br />(which beats being subject to cross examination on the practical impact of its programs on water <br />allocations and quality!). But does the United States have a responsibility to see that federal Jaw, <br />e.g., watershed management statutes like the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the 1897 <br />Forest Service Organic Act (the original watershed protection statute), the Multiple Use and <br />Sustained Yield Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act are implemented <br />throughout an interstate basin? Shouldn't the party states have the opportunity to demonstrate that <br />those statutes have a significant bearing on what their "equitable shares" of the river ought to be, <br />particul~rly since the array of environmental statutes enacted by Congress over the past 35 years <br />appears to have rendered the reliability of Supreme Court decreed rights and compact allocations <br />highly questionable? Given the dominant role of the United States in almost all interstate river <br />basins, should Congress repeal subsection (c) of the McCarran Amendment (43 U.S.C. 09666) <br />which provides that the otherwise comprehensive sovereign immunity waiver of that Act for river <br />system water adjudications does not apply to "any suit or controversy in the Supreme Court of the <br />United States involving the rights of States to the use of the water of any interstate stream?" Can the <br />King really do nb wrong on an interstate stream? Not so at least in the Colorado River Basin, where <br />the Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956 (43 U.S.C.9620m) authorizes any Basin State to <br />bring an action in the Supreme Court against the Secretary of the Interior for failure to comply with <br />the Law of the River. Why shouldn't a similar principle be applicable to other interstate basins? <br /> <br />''If the party states and the United States don't present a record for the Court to evaluate the <br />performance of the states and the United States in protecting the interstate watershed, should <br />environmental or other organizations be permitted to intervene to do so despite the parens patriae <br />doctrine generally barring third party intervention? New Jersey v. New York, 345 U.S. 369 (-1953). <br />Although each state theoretically represents the interests of all its citizens in the portion of the <br />watershed within each state, who speaks for an entire interstate watershed, particularly if the .United <br />States hasD't intervened? Regional or national environmental groups would certainly appear to have <br />standing to do so, if they can get around the Court's parens patriae precedents. The Special Master <br />in the pending proceedings in Nebraska v. Wyoming (No. 108 Orig.) rejected petitions to intervene <br />by several environmental groups claiming the United States had failed to develop an adequate record <br />to protect certain wildlife and their habitat, but afforded them broad participatory rights asamici <br />curiae. His decision was based, in part, on assurances from the United States that it would carry out <br />its environmental protection responsibilities and because other forums were considered available and <br />more suitable for addressing those issues.14 However, he more recently permitted a Wyoming <br />electric utility to intervene because it has "a direct stake in the Laramie River issues. . ., its evidence <br />and participation are central to resolving these 'issues [and] no party can fully represent Basin as <br />parens patriae.. . ."15 Is that the direction the Court should take on watershed protection issues, <br /> <br />14Special Master's Second Interim Report on Motionsfor Summary Judgment and Renewed Motions <br />for Intervention (April 9, 1992). <br /> <br />15Seventeenth Memorandum of Special Master on Petition to Intervene of Basin Electric Power <br />Cooperative 12 (April 2, 1999). <br /> <br />311 <br />